Ortelius put world at our fingertips

10:19 PM,
May 19, 2013

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For more than 1,500 years, trade flourished between Europe and Asia via the "Silk Road," the overland route from Constantinople (Istanbul) to India and China, bringing silk, spices and other trade goods. But around 1453, the Ottomans embargoed trade along the route, which forced European merchants to begin the "Age of Discovery," when ships began searching for routes to the Orient.

The voyages brought back trade goods, but they also brought back information that could be used to fill the gaps of knowledge about the shape of world. Cartography became an exciting and important profession. ...